~ This time next year…

Monthly Archives: January 2015

We’re advertising for jobs again at Frame Again and always find it a shame when people don’t send the kind of cover letter’s we are looking for so I’ve written a mock letter to send to people as an example.

The key for me in a good Cover Letter is to an understanding of the organisation, an appreciation of what the role specifically involves and then enthusiasm and experience that show you would be good for the organisation and that you would be good for the role.

I think 2015 will see a heavy focus on employers to do more for applicants. It’s so easy to get applications wrong if you have never been taught how to get them right and don’t have someone experienced who will help you look over them and so people are lost writing hundreds of applications without any of them being effective enough to showcase the value they can truly add to a role.

There is no incentive for businesses to give feedback to unsuccessful applications but it should become part of our expectation. I definitely haven’t always done this right but am trying to do better in 2015 and I think providing samples is a good place to start.

There have been two huge pieces of news in the last week that are worth people knowing about.

The first is news that price caps on payday loans are now in force: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jan/02/payday-loans-caps-fca

It’s amazing that the regulators took no steps to provide protection to the most vulnerable and moved so slowly but at least now, in the midst of significant public pressure the first protections are in place. Exorbitant interest rates on loans that target those least able to afford exorbitant rates have been keeping people in poverty or dragging them into it unnecessarily. Things are getting better.

Things have been evolving toward this for a while with supermarkets trying to pre-empt potential government interference and/or consumer fury by setting their own targets for waste reduction and transparency around it. This from Jan 2014 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/supermarket-waste-seven-chains-including-3092194. But now Jamie Oliver has announced some level of victory as Asda have agreed to trial stocking foods that it would have otherwise thrown out because of aesthetics. This is a step on a journey that will no doubt have a major impact on waste levels.

So is business transforming society or is society transforming business? Both these changes came about through a mixture of consumer pressure, general public expectations changing and government and industries responding by realising that they need to change too. Regulators forced one of these changes while Asda can claim leadership in the other but in reality, it has been consumer expectation and public pressure that has led to both.

What are the next 10 changes we should want to see and how are consumers going to get organised to set them in motion in 2015?